Looking In
by SlaYeRGiRLkaL
Summary: I'm on the outside I'm looking in. Derek's feelings about Addison and Meredith. Darker than some of my other stuff


I have been working on this for my Creative Writing course. I often switch POV without realizing it and this was something I wrote in an attempt to stay in one perspective. Hopefully I have accomplished my goal and please tell me what you think as feedback is much appreciated

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><p>His friends were stretched out across the couch with the newest member of their family sleeping in her mother's embrace, when he stepped into their living room. Meredith was at the end sitting with her clearly exhausted wife's head on her thigh and the redhead had a blonde boy of 4 napping in her arms. One of Meredith's hands was tangled in Addison's hair while the other held the sleeping infant against her chest. Everyone was asleep except Meredith. The little girl in her arms had weighed in at just under 8 pounds when she left the hospital with her Mommies and her big brother two days ago, but from Meredith's expression she might have weighed 80 pounds right now.<p>

"Thank god you're here!" She exclaimed once she noticed him. "Can you please take her for a minute Der?" She asked.

"Of course," He answered holding his arms out for the little girl. Meredith shifted slightly before grabbing a pillow to situate Addison's head on. She darted off a second later leaving him with a sleeping baby girl in his arms. She looked peaceful and he couldn't help but smile as he watched her little chest rise and fall. When Meredith came back she looked relieved.

"I thought my bladder was going to explode." Derek grinned at the blonde as she made to situate herself back on the couch. Addison shifted and Meredith whispered for her to relax. Derek made to hand the little girl back to Meredith, but she stopped him. "You can hold her Derek," She whispered, "I get to hold her all the time." If you had told him 10 years ago that he'd be holding Addison's sleeping newborn, he would have been Daddy and not just Uncle Derek. Sometimes that hit him harder than others. He looked up from the infant and saw Meredith stroking Addison's hair lovingly as she slept with her head in Mer's lap. Meredith loved Addison and Addison loved Meredith. All these years later and he still didn't know what happened. Addie had always been evasive about it.

The first time he'd laid eyes on Meredith she'd been handing Addison a disposable coffee cup. Even from his vantage point a floor above the lobby he could see Addison's face light up at the gesture. His pager had gone off a moment later and he ran off to answer it. It was three hours before he saw his fiancee again and that radiant smile he'd seen before had disappeared. She looked quite sour.

"What's wrong?" He'd asked. "Nothing," was her response and he did not press the subject. "Am I going to meet your friend?" He asked instead. She simply stared at him in confusion. "The blonde that brought you coffee this morning," He answered. "Oh," She mumbled before shrugging. "Why won't you tell me what's wrong Addie?"

"She asked me to dinner." Addison answered simply.

"You should go, it's not often that you have the night off," He'd responded, not realizing how dumb he sounded in that moment.

"You don't understand Derek." Addison had been avoiding eye contact, but she looked him straight in the eye when she spoke again. "She asked me to go to dinner with her," She paused for a moment, "She asked to go, like on a date." He had looked back at her stupidly and mumbled an "oh" in response. He didn't know if Addison had gone to dinner with Meredith that night, he had been on call and she never mentioned it.

He was so caught up in the memory of that afternoon that he had failed to notice that the blonde had fallen asleep. The entire Grey-Montgomery family slept as he sat there with the smallest Grey-Montgomery in his arms. He didn't know how Addison could find Meredith's snoring cute. He had hated the blonde for a long time after Addison had told him things between them were over, and he was overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of hatred he felt as she snored. No matter how hard he tried and no matter how much time had passed, he would always have feelings for the redhead, and it would always hurt to know that they were no longer returned in the same way.

Addison had called off their engagement in October. He saw Meredith with her for the first time in January, and he hated her. Addison was smiling as they held hands skating around the ice rink in Central Park. He was on a date with a nurse from pediatrics and it wasn't going as well as Addison's date with Meredith was going. Her date was better on the ice than she was and Derek saw Addison fall. Addie was giggling as the blonde asked if she was alright.

"My ass is cold and my ego is bruised," he had heard her say as the blonde helped her to her feet. She chuckled in response.

"I think some hot cocoa and a kiss will fix you right up Addie," the blonde said with a grin. She had wrapped one arm around Addison's waist and used the other to pull her in for a kiss. The redhead was smiling when they pulled apart a moment later.

"How about that cocoa?" She had asked and Meredith lead her off of the ice. Addison never knew that he had been there and seen them. Three weeks later he had found the redhead in tears. He had hoped that Meredith had caused them.

"Addie, what's wrong?" He had asked softly as she sobbed in the locker room. She mumbled something, but all he heard was "She's gone," and "I lost her." He didn't know who she was or what Addison was talking about, but he held the redhead firmly against his chest as she sobbed. He hoped that the blonde she had been ice skating with 3 weeks earlier was the reason for the tears. He hoped that she was gone and that Addison would be his once again.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this Derek," She had hiccuped once the sobbing had subsided. "I would be an awful surgeon anyway, Dr. Webber says I care too much. I should just quit now!" It pained him to watch her cry, but it hurt more to know that she was crying about a patient and not her girlfriend. She had just lost a 4 year old girl.

"Addison, you're a wonderful doctor and someday you'll be a great surgeon," He tried, giving her a cheerful smile which she returned weakly. "How about we go up to the nursery? Babies always cheer you up." She had nodded in response and as he lead her to the fourth floor, he heard her whisper "You're such a good friend Derek." Something about the way that she had said it made him surrender. Friendship was all he was ever going to have with Addison going forward.

After that morning he began to see more of Addison than he had been seeing since their breakup, and he was formally introduced to the blonde she was dating. He had been prepared to hate the woman, to be openly bitter, but she was polite, and he tried to keep his distain from surfacing, even if only for Addison's benefit. He was sure that Addison hadn't told her that he was her ex, she knew now of course, but he was sure that she hadn't known when they met for the first time. She was not awkward in that "meeting your girlfriend's ex" sort of way. She had been nervous though, because apparently Addison had spoken highly of him. Even now he could almost hear her squeak, "It's so nice to finally meet you, Addie's told me so many wonderful things about you." He had tried to be polite in return, but it was painful. Addison may have been over him, but he was in no way over her. It felt as if Addison had thrust a knife into his heart when she broke up with him, and now she was twisting the knife as he met her new partner.

"I don't know what you see in her," He finally said after the blonde had gone to the ladies room. They had gone out to eat and she'd spilled her soda, and since her departure from the table Addison and Derek had been sitting there awkwardly avoiding eye contact. She turned to him immediately.

"I didn't believe in love at first sight until I saw Meredith." She hadn't answered his question. She was avoiding eye contact again as she played with the paper wrapper from her straw. "It's complicated Derek," She added after a prolonged silence.

"Un-complicate it then," He growled in response and she turned back to face him immediately.

"She's not just some med-school groupie Derek," She bit back almost instantaneously. "The first time our eyes met, I believed in love at first sight. I never believed in it before, even with you, but the first time I saw her I believed. She's special and I'm absolutely crazy about her. I feel that spark every time our hands touch. It feels like it was meant to be, like our fingers were meant to be intwined. I never meant to hurt you Derek. I love you, you mean the world to me, and I want you in my life," She finished with a weak smile. Derek knew that Addison had never intended to hurt him, but that knowledge did nothing to lessen the blow. It hurt. He hurt.

"Well maybe I don't want you in mine," He responded before standing up and grabbing his jacket. Meredith was returning as he walked away and he heard her apologizing to Addie before he left. She thought that he was leaving because of her, because she had done something wrong. Derek was sure that Addison explained things to her that night, but he couldn't be sure. He and Addie didn't speak for almost eight months after that night.

He saw her outside of work, still with Meredith. They were giggling together at a table, pressed against the window of a local Starbucks, sipping overpriced lattes. It had been almost a year since she had called off their engagement and he'd gone on dates with three different women, none of which had been even remotely successful. He had thought that Addison was the one, but she wasn't and it was time that he accepted that he wasn't going to win her back. He'd bought her cocoa. She had been standing outside of the nursery when he went to give it to her.

"I'm sorry I've been a jerk," He had whispered. "I was angry and hurt, but we were best friends for three and a half years and that doesn't just go away because we're not together anymore." She hugged him.

"Don't be sorry I understand, I just, I've missed you so much," She whispered as she squeezed him in a tight hug. He didn't want her to let go and he didn't want to let her go ever again. He and Addison had gotten each other through the highs and lows of Medical School. They had forged a bond and their breakup was not going to break that. He had promised to try to get along with Meredith after that.

The hatred that had surfaced in him at the blonde's snores had subsided. The feelings of resentment and hatred boiled to the surface every once in a while, but he tried his best to control them. In the 10 years that he had known Meredith this was only the second time he'd been in close proximity to her while she slept. The only other time had been a little over four years ago when Danny was only 3 weeks old. It was that night that he stopped resenting her, because for the first time in 6 years he recognized her not as the woman who had stolen Addison's affections, but as a woman in pain. She sobbed that Addison didn't love her or their son. She sobbed because Addison wasn't home. She was always at work. Meredith apologized for sobbing on him too, she wasn't a crier, but she cried until she had no more tears and fell asleep on his shoulder while the newborn boy slept in his crib. Addison had come home and found them that way hours later.

He and Addison had both accepted Fellowship positions in Seattle 15 months before, and Meredith had agreed to the move to be closer to her demented mother. He was sure that her mother was the reason she had finally agreed to have a baby with Addison. It wasn't a secret that she'd screamed at the woman while she was in the hospital almost a year ago.

"I'll be a better mother to my child than you ever were to me!" Meredith was always out to prove herself. Prove that she could make it through Medical School even when her mother thought that she couldn't make it. She had to prove that she could be a doctor, a surgeon outside of her mother's reputation. She didn't need to be Ellis Grey's daughter to have success, she could do it on her own. She could be just as good if not better, and Derek knew that she was out to not only make Addison happy, but prove that there was something she could do better than Ellis Grey. It was something that he thought had brought Meredith and Addison together. Their desire to prove themselves as women outside of their familial influence was something they shared, but after the birth of their son Addison's desires drew them apart.

Meredith was in the middle of her third year of Residency when they had the little boy and he and Addison were almost at the finish line, they were almost Attending surgeons, but Addison was at work more than she was at home with her wife and son and it was taking a toll on the blonde. He could no longer resent the broken woman before him. Addison had promised her love, had finally convinced her to have a child after four years together, and had selfishly chosen her career over her family after that child was born. Addison had come home while he was lost in his own thoughts.

"I don't know how you live with this," He'd said curtly as Meredith continued to snore against his shoulder. She had ignored his tone.

"I think it's adorable," She responded with a smile.

"You look happy."

"My vacation just started. I have a week to spend with my wife and our son." He felt bad for thinking of her as selfish. She had wanted that boy long before Meredith had come around to the idea of them having a child together, and there was no way that she would just forget about him, and there was no way she would forget about Mer. She loved Meredith and she loved little Danny. They were her family. The little boy fussed and despite having just pulled an 18 hour shift, Addison went to him and soothed him. He hated himself for that momentary thought that she was being selfish. She wanted them.

Two months after Addison and Meredith had been married he had found her crying. When he asked what was wrong she told him that Meredith didn't want children. He laughed. It was inappropriate of course, but he laughed. How stupid was she to not have asked this question going into the marriage? How could you be with someone for two years and not know that they didn't want children? Addison found humor in the situation and had smacked him when he posed these questions. Both women had worked hard to get to the point that they were at now. Meredith was half way through her third year of Medical School and Addison was in the middle of her third year as a surgical resident. He understood Meredith's position.

"It's taken a lot for me to accept the fact that you dumped me for a woman, and to come to terms with the fact that you thought I was just a drunk womanizing jerk when we first met. I even got over your engagement and the fact that you ran off and eloped and didn't even invite me to your wedding, but if you file for divorce after two months together I will never forgive you. Maybe now just isn't the right time for children. Maybe it will be the right time 2 or 3 years from now, just let it go for right now, you just got married." Addison had smiled at him once he was finished speaking. They had come a long way since then. Sometimes he couldn't believe it. As he held sweet little Kasey in his arms it was hard to believe that Meredith and Addison had ever argued about having children.

The little girl's bright blue eyes were staring up at him, she'd woken up and he hadn't even noticed. She wasn't fussing, just sort of looking at him in that way that new babies look. She was perfect. It was a miracle that he was even holding her. She hadn't come easy to her Mommies. They had been trying for over six months before the pregnancy finally took. The infant in his arms was a product of Addison and Meredith's love and devotion to one another. She represented everything he had watched them struggle through for the last decade. She was Addison trying desperately to spare his feelings. She was Addison's tears. She was his jealousy and pain as he watched bitterly as Addison smiled with someone else. Kasey was everything that had made him miserable for the past ten years. There was a split second when he thought about letting her go, just dropping her. Addison would feel the pain she'd inflicted on him. He imagined her crying and tears slid down his cheeks. How could he have thought something so awful? He stood up and the infant looked at him with curious blue eyes.

"Here Kasey go to Mommy," He whispered as he gently situated the little girl in Meredith's arms. He couldn't pretend anymore. He wasn't over Addison. He could never be friends with Meredith. He tried not to resent her, he tried to say he was over Addie, he lied. He had lied to himself for far too long. They saw him as a friend, but in reality he had been sitting on the outside looking in.


End file.
